We see what we want to see. Perception is slave to desire, the images that filter through our vision transford, imdiately altered.
Even after he pressed the brick, and the latch opened, leading down into the sewer. Even after I passed the caved in passage that had collapsed the entrance to this entire section, which I'd almost undoubtedly seen from the other side after the battle with the lithid, puzzled by what had triggered the cave in. Even after he led through a series of locked doors, each of increasing complexity, delving down, down, down, and further still.
It was only when I saw the passage—the sa one Thoth and I had walked a hundred tis, ghouls scrabbling in tow—did I finally believe it.
"Do you have enough contingencies?" I finally asked, watching as he took long strides before . It echoed countless similar instances of my childhood, of following my father, waiting for him to turn around, to acknowledge .
Only to be left wanting.
He scoffed. "Clearly not. You were practically barking at the door."
The king paused at a place the hallways t. As before, the stone was unnaturally smooth, almost slippery. Subconsciously, I turned toward the laboratory.
"Where are you going?" He asked.
"What's that way?" I chucked my thumb at the closed iron door, locked tightly and looming.
"Nothing of import. A smaller facility that hardly bears ntioning."
The words stunned more thoroughly than any blow.
As always, he seed perfectly attentive to my weakness. His cold eyes stared down at , and I was a child once more, paralyzed in the heaviness of his thrall. "This is your final chance to turn back. One of the last—and hardest—lessons I learned is that a king should not know everything done to his benefit. Ignorance is a gift to those with soft hands and soft hearts. You are not soft. But you need not tornt yourself with the particulars of every unpleasantry."
I chewed my lip. "If it's done to my benefit—to the benefit of the kingdom—I want to know. No matter how ugly it is."
"Spoken like the ignorant. Follow."
He took the center path, one of several that were inaccessible after the apocalypse. I followed behind him, and while the small candle of hope I'd held flickered in my chest, I struggled, searching for any possibility beyond the dark prospects that haunted my mind. Maybe I'd misunderstood and there was so usage of the chambers I didn't understand. Maybe whatever he considered to be the 'larger' facility was sothing else, set to a completely different purpose.
He's not evil. He's just a man. A man from a different ti, with an antiquated understanding of the world he lives in. I've seen countless instances of it since my return. He can be reasoned with.
As his wide steps took him further and further away from , I struggled to believe it.
The echoing footsteps ca to a halt as he stopped before a set of double-doors, grabbing their handles and throwing them open.
It was dark. Too dark to make anything out.
With an utter lack of pomp or circumstance, he stepped aside, allowing entry.
Darkness beckoned forward. A series of phosphorescent lights lit the tallic catwalk and little else. Even without seeing the full scope, it was clear that he was right—this room was far larger than the lab. The ceiling stretched out above , and I wondered how much of the chasm it covered beneath the throne room, imagined its reaches grasping at the lush chairs that sat on the podium above, oblivious of the abyss.
A ring of lights kicked on near the bottom of the room, and a montary reflection off glass nestled in the darkness was the only warning I received.
One by one, the lights kicked on, each with an audible click, illuminating circular rows of the sa cylinders that filled the smaller facility.
Only here, there were hundreds.
All occupied. Bodies suspended in fluid, their skin desiccated and peeling, wide eyes seeing nothing, stares of accusation blank and hollow.
I clung to the center console—it was burnished gold, much like so of the dwarven chanisms in Couha'zen. Vertigo warred with nausea as my stomach heaved, eventually losing the battle as I staggered to the railing and vomited over the side. Heavy footfalls shook the catwalk as he approached. I half expected him to haul over, send plunging to the pavent below. Instead, a strong hand rubbed the space between my shoulders.
"What have you done?" I wiped my mouth, suppressing another spasm. "What the hells have you done?!"
His hand slipped from my shoulders, and he stared down at , unfaltering. "What was necessary."
"The fuck it is. The fuck—How can any of this be necessary?" I extended an arm to the chambers, utterly revolted.
"The dwarven siege weapons—"
I staggered away from him, "—Oh gods. Oh, my gods—"
"Listen to ." He shouted, his overwhelming voice echoing in the chamber. "The dwarven siege weapons require a monuntal amount of energy—"
"—just stop—" I whispered.
"Every traditional source they once drew from is extinct. I searched for an alternative, for years, finding nothing, always coming up short. When the Crimson Brand scoured the cabin of the revenant who held you captive, they found the foundations for this. Diagrams for a device that would allow siphoning of mana directly from the source."
I buried my face in my hands.
She was right.
"You took…" I shook. "The work of a madman who intended to confine to a cage, with every intention of tornting until I awakened, looked at it, and decided—you know what, that seems like a pretty good idea?"
"Yes." He said bluntly. "Because it was."
Slowly I lowered myself to the grating, clinging to the guardrail of the catwalk for support. From beneath, their faces stared down at , illuminated by the dull yellow light of the mana lamps, sickly and eroded.
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"Did you ever even believe in it? Any of it? In the letter I sent? Did my intentions, my plan to avoid disaster, never reach your ears at all?"
"Why do you think. This. Happened?" He snapped.
My eyes widened. I turned to him, boots carrying forward in trudging steps "…What?"
"Aye." He crossed his arms across his wide chest. "Your warning was heeded. As soon as the first predictions were verified. At first, I thought of it as little more than a promising conflict. Thaddeus sent a litany of spies to follow in her footsteps. Dozens died before the first report ca back." His face twisted in frustration. "She was even stronger than you'd suggested. More force of nature than man—let alone woman. I couldn't accept it. That soone so formidable had sohow risen to prominence beneath my very nose. So we sent more. Mages this ti, capable of imprinting mory orbs. Even less of those survived, but what they brought back was enough." His mouth pulled downward, and for the first ti since I'd known him, he seed genuinely lost. "I cannot best her, son. And if she is beyond , what chance do you have?"
It was sothing I'd always known, but hearing him say it, actually admit it out loud, rocked to my core.
I swallowed. "Regardless of what you saw, regardless of how capable she is. There is a world of difference between accepting that, and this." I thrust my hand to the side.
"Less than you believe." He returned.
"How do you figure? Explain it. Because gods help , I want to understand."
"Look at them. The multitude you see before you." He took a step forward, looming over . "That is but a fraction of a fraction of the souls lost in a wide scale war. Even factoring in those processed before this, it all adds up to a pittance compared to the mortality we face should she levy the sort of force your visions predicted to bear."
Could there be truth to that?
It was a dark echo of thoughts I'd directed towards Thoth, countless tis. That I'd be willing to do anything if it ant having her gone. For the first ti, doubt crept in.
I shook my head, overwheld by the visceral. "Did they volunteer? Sign up to be crushed like grapes into wine, all for the good of the kingdom?"
"Do the peasants and commoners of kingdoms volunteer to be razed when competing forces trample their hos to ruin?" He snarled. "Don't be stupid."
"So… they didn't… then." I walked away from him again, feeling the overwhelming need to vomit resurge, despite already emptying the contents of my stomach twice over.
"Their nas were collected, as well as their ages and potency of their magic. When this is over, they will be morialized, their nas edified as heroes who saved the kingdom."
"Where?" I asked him, mouth stretched into sothing ghostly and inhuman. "I see no wall upon which their nas are etched."
He pointed to a cabinet beside the console. "There are other ledgers. But you'll find so beneath the desk."
What I found was a multitude. Countless leather ledgers stuffed on top of each other with little to no organization, nas and ages scrawled, though the forr was rare.
Unidentified Infernal Female - 16-20
Unidentified Light Elf Male - 80s
Unidentified Light Elf Female - 40s
Unidentified Dwarven Female - 30s
Every page of the thick ledger was filled, additional information scrawled into the margins. I went to the others, hoping to find them mostly empty, hoping that this had only just started, that there was ti to stop it, to change course.
What I found was thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands.
And he'd confird there were more.
"This… is what summoned the lithid." I realized with damning clarity, glaring at him in overt accusation.
"The monster you slew? Yes." He shrugged. "An unexpected pest and constant nuisance. Ridding us of it did the kingdom a great service."
“It wasn’t just so monster. The demons in my camp claid the lithid was contracted. Tied to a mortal.”
Gil shook his head. “I thought you took it to heart. The adage that we cannot always choose our allies. Unions of convenience are how dynasties are ensured. Isn’t that the entire point of what you’re doing?”
“Converting yesterday’s enemies into today’s allies is hardly the sa as aligning with a monster that feasts on souls.”
“Isn’t it?” He pressed. “It was a parasite. But useful, given our interests were aligned. It needed to eat to survive. Sourcing that sustenance was trivial given the situation–and putting it to work likely saved more lives in the long run than what would have happened if it were allowed to run rampant.”
“Gods. You can’t start a fire and take credit when it only burns down half the forest.”
Directly across from the catwalk, an infernal stared directly at . Her blank eyes were half-lidded, and her horns spiraled much like Maya's. She was older, but not by much, only a few years.
Hold on.
Sothing occurred to , a sneaking suspicion that twisted at my guts. I grabbed the ledger and leafed through it, looking through the nas and designations again with focused intent.
"Would you put that down?" Gil growled.
"No." I tore through page after page, searching without finding, alternating between scanning the listings and scanning the faces of the people in the tubes.
"What are you even looking for?"
I snapped the ledger shut.
Then, with an odd sort of calm that betrayed nothing of the turmoil I felt, I asked the question. My mouth worked silently, before I finally gave it voice.
"Where are the humans, father?"
There was no answer. It was the first ti he hadn't been ready with one.
I pressed him, letting the ledger drop to my feet with a clang. "Even if they outnumber us, even if magic is more common among their number, there should be at least one in every thousand, no? So where are they?"
When he spoke, his voice was filled with disgust. "You'd have condemn our subjects to this fate?"
I wheeled on him, vibrating with a rage so potent it threatened to ignite from the inside. "They are all your subjects. For fuck's sake, you invited them here. Passed laws forbidding their enslavent. Unbarred the gates. Welcod them with open arms."
His visage grew dark, angry. "And as they always do, they ca in great numbers, pillaging, eating, consuming everything they touch." His face twisted in revulsion. "At least in this, they contribute back to the longevity they drain so much from."
"Don't start lying now," I seethed, pressing in on him. He looked down at with wild eyes, his fists clenched at his side. "This is the only reason they're here. The only reason the gates were opened. This was your intention from the start."
He breathed heavily from his nostrils, not saying anything, just standing there.
The scale of it floored .
Pieces sliding into place with echoing finality.
Everything he'd done, since the beginning. Every move he'd made, every kindness he'd extended was in service of this. A steady stream of mana for our weapons.
And I’d been stupid enough to believe it was genuine.
"All this ti… I thought you were different." I shook, my vision blurring. "That you were better. But you never changed. You were just… waiting."
All this ti. Every stride I'd made forward, undercut at every turn.
We were done. Worse than done. I could never trust him again. Not after this. He made Ephira look like a traveling bard by comparison. Abdication wasn't enough. Banishnt wasn't enough. Every second he was alive was a second he would use to undermine . Every second he remained in power, more innocent people would die.
I called the fla, draining every drop of mana I had into a widening inferno that ran rampant from my fingers, snapping my wrist out before he could react, bathing him in enough fire to leave nothing beyond the bones.
A large hand, utterly unscathed and bare of any protection, reached through the fire and grabbed my head. Then I was wrenched downward.
The last thing I felt was my skull shattering against the railing.
Then it all went black.
Again.
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